Henry Normal: life with my autistic son

The Times

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There’s a Bafta on the sideboard in Henry Normal’s dining room, overlooking the sea in Brighton. Normal was the writer and producer behind some of the best, most groundbreaking comedy on television. The Mrs Merton Show, The Royle Family, Gavin & Stacey and The Mighty Boosh, to name just a few, were all his programmes.

For 17 years he would commute to London to work at Baby Cow Productions, the company he co-owned with Steve Coogan. He is 61 now, and retired from the high pressure of managing a production company. But he’s still working. A Radio 4 monologue has been adapted into a one-man show about being the father of 19-year-old Johnny, his only child, who is autistic. At the end of every performance, fathers queue up to talk to him about their own autistic child. Often, they’ll cry. Normal might cry, too. Tears come easily, he says. “Sometimes on stage I have to pretend it’s a dramatic pause, but in reality I’m trying not to cry.”

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